My name was given to me by the Goddess of Mercy. Well, not literally of course. My aunt went to the temple to pray for a name when Mum was pregnant with me. Dad and Mum were not confident of giving me a good name – whatever a “good name” meant to them – so my aunt thought it a good idea to obtain one from the Goddess, as it would surely mean the name was blessed, and by extension, me too. I’m not entirely sure what that process entailed but two options were offered by the Goddess (more accurately, the assistants at the temple, but please indulge my divine version of events..). One was “Bi Er” – not “beer”, but “bi er” (make sure there’s a clean break between the two syllables). And the other “Pei Ru”. These are in Mandarin. At this juncture, I probably ought to explain the complicated system of naming in Singapore. There are different dialect groups within the Chinese community, and we are Hokkien. My great-grandparents emigrated to Singapore from the Fujian province in China when making a living became impossible. The dialect spoken there is Fujian (in Mandarin), or Hokkien (in well, Hokkien). Pei Ru, in Hokkien, is Puay Ju. The government allows us Chinese to register our names in accordance with our own dialect group. Thus my name, whilst in Mandarin – the dialect chosen by the Chinese Communist Party as the official language when it came to power and has since attained the same status in Singapore – is Pei Ru, it was registered as Puay Ju. Bi Er in Hokkien is Pek Ngor. I know, it’s unpronounceable. Luckily, my parents deemed it too old fashioned and discarded it. And thus, the more fashionably named Puay Ju was born.

Growing up, I was called Ah Ru by everyone in the family, San Por Ru (=Skinny Ru in Hokkien) by Ah Gong. Yes, the shape of my face bore no relation to the rest of my body – I was very skinny as a child. My Chinese teachers called me Pei Ru, English teachers, Puay Ju. At Oxford, two names were one too many for my tutors otherwise preoccupied with far more important matters, so I was simply Puay. When I started work, even that was too much, so I became PJ!

I like my name. My surname is Kang, which means “river”. Puay means “to admire”. Ju is “to bear/accept”. I decided that my parents chose this name with far more thought than just what sounded fashionable. Surely, at some subconscious level, they must have harboured the great aspiration for me to have the humility to admire others’ strengths and generosity to accept their weaknesses. And how befitting that is with the imagery of a river!

Now, that’s the thing with Chinese names – there’s an endless scope for romantising. Each character in the Chinese language carries at least one meaning, often more, so like it or not, your Chinese name means something. Because of that, of all the versions of my name, PJ is my least favourite. I mean, it’s short for parajumpers, Petaling Jaya, and… pyjamas. More importantly, the two letters don’t mean anything. Nothing to admire, or bear. But please, don’t stop calling me PJ. My preferences aside, as the lovelorn Juliet wisely said, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. Besides, PJ still beats, any day, “Pooh Joo”, “Pway You” and oh, I have to tell you this. Shortly after I came back from Oxford, I took the naming convention I learnt there and called myself Puay Ju Kang. I was on the phone one day and introduced myself as such. The poor guy on the other end of the line was stunned into silence, before regaining his composure with, “huh, Phua Chu Kang?!”

For those of you unfamiliar with Singaporean comedy, this is him:

Source: Toggle

So tell me, what’s in your name?